POLIO

Poliomyelitis, commonly referred to as POLIO, is a highly contagious viral disease of the nervous system that causes paralysis. Organs can stop functioning within a matter of hours after infection. Fatalities normally occur if the virus affects the respiratory system, preventing the victim from breathing. In some cases, polio leaves an individual with permanent paralysis, typically in the lower body.

Currently, there is no cure for polio once it has been contracted. Programs to eradicate polio work solely through prevention by vaccinating children at a young age. As a result of a huge global effort to eradicate the disease, it has largely disappeared and has become one of the global health’s success stories.

WHO IS AT RISK?

People of any age who aren’t vaccinated for polio. Anyone can contract the disease when they come in contact with it, the disease mainly affects children under five.

HOW IS POLIO SPREAD?

The virus is very contagious and spreads easily from person-to-person through fecal oral route. Someone who is infected with polio can spread the disease to others before they develop symptoms and up to two-weeks after symptoms appear.

Someone can become infected with polio through droplets from a sneeze or cough of an infected person and/or contact with feces of an infected person. Polio can live for many weeks in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Good hygiene is key. The polio virus can also spread through unsanitary food and water.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS?

Most people infected with polio never develop any symptoms. However, about 25% of people infected with polio will have flu-like symptoms that can include:

• Sore throat
• Fever
• Tiredness
• Nausea
• Headache
• Stomach pain

These symptoms usually last two to five days but go away without treatment. Some people infected with polio will develop serious symptoms that affect the brain and spinal cord:

• Meningitis (inflammation of the brain and spinal cord).
• Paralysis (cannot move parts of the body) or weakness in the arms and/or legs. 1 in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis.

WHEN IS THE VACCINE GIVEN?

The polio vaccine is given to children in a 4-dose series as part of the regular vaccine schedule at:

• 2 months old
• 4 months old – 90% effective or more against paralytic polio
• 6-18 months old – 99% to 100% effective against paralytic polio
• 4-6 years of age – lifetime booster
• Adults who both completed their polio vaccination series as children and are at higher risk for polio exposure can receive one lifetime polio booster

HISTORY OF POLIO

• 1894 – First polio epidemic occurs in the U.S.
• 1908 – Virus was identified as polio in Vienna by Drs. Karl Lansteiner and Erwin Popper
• 1921 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt contracts polio
• 1950s – Polio becomes one of the most serious communicable diseases among children in the U.S.
• 1952 – Nearly 60,000 children were infected with the polio virus; thousands paralyzed, over 3,000 died
• 1953 – Jonas Salk (pictured) develops the first polio vaccine
• 1955 – U.S. began widespread vaccinations
• 1960 – Sabin’s vaccine is developed
• 1979 – U.S. records its last case of polio in isolated Amish communities in several states
• 1979 – Polio eliminated in the U.S.
• 1994 – Polio declared ELIMINATED from the Americas
• 2002 – Polio eliminated in Europe
• 2012 – Polio is on the verge of being eliminated from the world; virus remains endemic in only northern Nigeria and the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• 2014 – South-East Asia declared Polio-free
• 2022 – US reports polio case in Rockland County, NY ( a New York City suburb that has been a center of vaccine resistance in recent years)

Five of the six regions of the world are certified polio-free—the African Region, the Americas, Europe, South East Asia and the Western Pacific. Only two polio-endemic countries (nations that have never interrupted the transmission of wild poliovirus) remain—Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Source: WHO